Play Ball

It was a baseball weekend around here. We spent most of our Saturday at the ball field. Both of the boys had a game. Dylan had his very first game. He loved it! He hit the ball and was able to make a base. He was so proud of himself. He almost got a boy out at 1st when the play the outfield. It was a very HOT game, but it was nice to be out in the sun. This was Joshua's 3rd game. I love to watch him play. The kids are getting competitive at this age and it's a lot of fun to sit out there and cheer the boys on!

Joshua up to batMy Friend's daughter fed Gracie her lunch! Thanks Kiley!

Dylan's turn to bat Coach Bell helping Dylan get ready.

Dylan's quote of the day...

I know this is gross but I had to share..... Dylan was wearing a play gas mask and says.... "Mom, this gas mask really works, I am sniffing Mckenzie's butt (our dog) and I don't smell anything!" awesome.

Perfect Weekend

Perfect weekend says it all!!! As a birthday surprise for Tim, I booked us a room at the Embassy Suites for Friday night. We asked Tim's parents to watch the kids for the night. MawMaw and PawPaw were more than happy to have all 3 kids spend the night. We dropped the kids off late afternoon and headed to our hotel to check in. We had so much fun. We wanted a night to just relax and get a good night's sleep. That is exactly what we did. We enjoyed Happy hour at the hotel and then had a great dinner at Olive Garden. We then did some shopping at the galleria. Tim was on the hunt for new work clothes and I needed a bathing suit. (ugh). After some shopping we went back to the hotel and got ice cream and watched a movie...without having to rewind it a million times to hear what was being said! We did get our 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep we were hoping for also! We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and then checked out for some more shopping at the new outlets in Leeds. It was a beautiful day to be outside walking around. We also drove out of our way to eat at Milo's. Our favorite!! We don't have them in North Alabama, but we should! Although, I would eat it more than I need to! After a day of shopping we picked up the kids and headed home. The kids had a ball with the grandparents! They want to do it again! OK...we will let them! We enjoyed our rest, but it didn't last long. We were up all night with a sick kid the next night. Go figure!

The new outlet in Leeds! So nice!

We LOVE Milo's!!!

ALOT!!!!!

Yeah...well...what can I say?!

Yes, I am totally aware that I have not updated the blog in over a year. GO me! Amazing how fast time goes by. I am also aware that I made a promise to keep it up this time last year. I lied!!! I am going to do better starting....now! I obviously can't update you on a total year (not that many of you don't know what is going on with us anyway. Especially if you are on FACEBOOK!!! ) Here is a quick update on the kids...
Joshua
Joshua turns 8 in one month. Oh my! I can't believe I have an 8 year old. It seems like he was just a baby yesterday. Where did the time go? Joshua loves school and reading. I think I could leave him at the library each morning, pick him up at dinner and he would be just fine with that. I love my little book worm. Over the past year he has played baseball, tennis and basketball. We are back at baseball season and he seems to love it. He can hit that ball too!!! He has also been participating in Cub Scouts. He has a love/hate relationship with that one. Not sure how much longer he will do it.
Dylan
Oh boy. What do I say about Dylan?! He is getting closer to turning 5. He can't wait. He still has a few months but we talk about his birthday party everyday. No, we have not planned it yet. But he has it all laid out in his little head. Dylan should be going on 35. He pretty much can take care of himself. Don't even try to help him do ANYTHING!!!! You will be put in your place. You also never know what that kid is going to say next. Oh, and if you need your house cleaned, this is the boy for the job!
Gracie
Sweet Gracie. Our family was made complete with this precious girl. She is the best baby in the world. She will work you to the bone though. She doesn't stop for 2 seconds and is ALWAYS into something. She makes us smile and laugh all the time. We call her Miss Congeniality. She waves to everyone, even the dog. She will wave and smile until you notice her. She is finally starting to walk. I thought it was never going to happen!!! Everyday she walks a little more. It is so exciting to see. I love this age.

Another tooth gone

Joshua came home from school yesterday with one of his front teeth barely hanging on. So gross! It was our mission last night to get it out. After several failed attempts from Dad, I pulled the tooth out!!! So not me!!! Joshua got $1 from the tooth fairy and we matched it with another dollar since he was such a good sport! This was the 3rd tooth to come out. I should probably start saving for those braces now.

Wordless Wednesday

Well, the pictures were taken on Wednesday anyway...

Girl's Weekend

My mom, sister and I decided last weekend to take a short girl's trip to Nashville. We had a blast! We stayed at the Opryland hotel and did alot of shopping at the Opry Mills mall. My uncle and his wife even joined us for dinner. It was so much fun to be away with just the girls. I love my kids, but I was in need of some time away. Tim did an awesome job taking care of everything back at the house. He even took the kids to lunch and the park on Saturday all by himself. He did run into some neighbors at the park so they helped him out with Gracie. Hey, even I need some help when I am out with all 3 kiddos!! Thank you Tim for letting me get away for some needed girl time with my mom and sister. "The girls" have decided this should make the calendar every year! :)

The girl likes to eat....

Gracie is going on 13 weeks now. Most babies start cereal, veggies, and fruit at about 6 months. Well, not my kids!! Both of the boys were ready to eat well before then. Since they were such big babies I always had the doctor's approval to go ahead and start on cereal. Gracie is no exception to this. She has been ready to eat since day 1. It was the doctor's idea to start the cereal a few weeks ago. We have done that for a while so we decided to give her some bananas mixed in with her cereal last night. She loved it! She was laughing and cooing as she ate. At times she would fuss at me if I was not feeding it to her. She felt like such a big girl. And she is...She weighs over 15 lbs now. She is in equal proportion with her height so eat on!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

We kicked off our Valentine's Day celebration by decorating cookies on Saturday with our Sunday school class. We do this every year and of course the kids love it. They get to decorate heart shaped cookies with as much frosting, candy and sprinkles as they want. They put alot of time and work into their creations. I think they ate too many cookies as they decorated though, because they have not asked for one cookie since we got home. The cookies will probably hit the trash today! :)
When the kids got up Sunday morning they had a Valentine's Day surprise from Mom and Dad. The boys got candy and a color blast project and Gracie got a new toy for her highchair.
Valentine's night the boys went to sleep over with Gram and Grampie since there is no school Monday due to President's Day. Tim and I stayed at home with Gracie and had a date night in. It was tooo cold to go anywhere plus we felt lazy. I left Tim in charge of dinner. ( Brave, I know!) He did a great job! He got take out from O'Charley's. He got us both a pecan chicken salad, which we both LOVE, and 2 desserts! YUM! We ate,relaxed and watched the Olympics together. It was better than a night out!
Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

Valentine's outfit from Grandmommy!

Tim helping the kids decorate cookies

Valentine's Day surprises!

Alot has changed around here...

"Every good and perfect gift comes from above." James 1:17

It has been a LONG time since I last blogged. Our life has changed so much since then. I am sad that I did not keep all of the little moments that I have probably already forgotten about written down. However, I have lots of family and friends who have great memories so I am sure it is all out there somewhere.

As most everyone knows (since I talk about it ALL OF THE TIME) we adopted a baby girl! Her name is Gracie Lauren and she has brought so much joy to our lives in just the short 11 weeks she has been here. (OK, I am crying as I am typing this!) We love this little gift from GOD so much. I still don't know what we did to deserve such a blessing, but I am not going to keep looking for answers, I am just going to accept this precious gift. It is a long story about how she came to be. We have all that in paperwork, stories, emails, pictures and in our hearts to share with her one day when the time comes. She will know that she was ALWAYS loved, even before time. What an awesome story she already has written for her!!!

I can't catch up on everything that I have missed since I stopped blogging so I am just going to go forward from here.

I have to keep the blog private now so please sign in and check the blog out when you can. Feel free to leave comments as I print this blog and save it as a scrapbook for my kids.

Puppies everywhere!

We have been dog sitting for my parents over the past 5 days. They have 2 yorkies and a cocker spaniel. We offered to dog sit while they went to Boston to visit some of the family. Things here have been crazy to say the least. The boys have had so much fun helping take care of the "babies." The 2 little ones are really just like toddlers. They are always 1 step behind you, eat every so often, and wake you up in the middle of the night to potty. Of course, our dog does the same, so it was nothing to add 3 more to the mix. We had friends come over and cook out one night and the dogs even joined us around the fire pit for ghost stories. We had lots of fun with them, but we take them home tonight. I know Gram will be happy to see them. Tim and I leave for the beach tomorrow so the boys will be staying over at Gram's for a few days. She gets to take care of my babies now!

So Blessed

So I wanted to do a picture review of everything that we have missed since my last "real" blog entry months ago. It was taking so long to upload pictures that I decided to just start fresh right where we are now!
We have had a great summer so far. We have been to the beach, spent a week at VBS, had a visit from my older brother Jason, My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary, had several play dates, and enjoyed countless hours at the pool with friends.
I was giving the boys their bath tonight and it hit me right in the face how BLESSED I AM! God is SO good to me that I can't even begin to understand why! I am usually aware of the blessings that God has given me but it made me tear up tonight thinking about them. It isn't just one certain thing, it is all the little things that I probably overlook everyday. I LOVE my family SO much it hurts. My boys are amazing! I take for granted how precious they are. Why would I be so fortunate to have 2 healthy, smart, cute, funny little boys running around my house? Yes, I have days or moments when it just seems like they are more than I can handle, but those moments are quickly lost when I hear them laugh or they snuggle up to me. I can't believe that Joshua is already 6 years old and Dylan is 3. Do I really have babies anymore? I guess I have children! Wow. I look forward to the things that are to come for my boys. Even though it makes me sad they are growing up, I love the age they are at right now. Such "Big Boy" things going on. I thank God so much for blessing me and choosing me to be the Mom to these 2 wonderful boys! I know that I am so blessed to also have a great husband helping me raise our boys. I love you Tim, Joshua, and Dylan. And I thank you God for giving me what I don't deserve!

Long Time No Post

Wow! It has been such a long time since I last posted anything. What is my problem?! A little thing called FaceBook! I have spent so much time on there catching up with friends and posting pictures that I am always out of "computer time" by the time I am done. Shame on me!!! Most of my friends and family are on Facebook so I assume most are caught up on our daily events. Two problems with that are
1. Not everyone that reads my blog is on Facebook
2. I can't print off FaceBook and save it for the boys to read later in their life.
So the guilt has gotten to me and I am back!

Bruster's Ice cream...

is the best! We stopped by Bruster's after school for a quick snack before running some errands. Joshua and Dylan got the kid's dinosaur sundae. I was good and didn't get anything...of course I had a couple bites of Dylan's though!

Happy Birthday Gram!

Gram's 29th birthday was Saturday! Everyone went to dinner at Greenbriar's. After dinner we went back to Gram and Grampie's house to have birthday cake. It was one Gram's favorite kinds... A Publix cake! (who doesn't like a cake from Publix?!) Gram got lots of good stuff for her birthday! Hope she enjoyed the night! We love you lots Gram!

Spring Program

Dylan had his first spring program at school last Thursday. He did such a good job. The theme was "School Days" a review of the holidays celebrated during the school year. His class was dressed as "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" in honor of Dr Seuss week. He saw us when he walked in and never got upset. He just waved and kept walking with his class to the stage. The program was very cute. When it was over we went to Applebees for lunch! It was a fun morning!

Hail! No!

We had some crazy storms pass through Friday. We were lucky that the dangerous storms went past our area, but we did have the worst hail I have ever seen. We have lived here more than 14 years and I have never seen so much hail. It was pounding our roof and windows. I was so afraid it was going to break the windows. It only lasted a few minutes but it was enough to do damage to several cars that were parked outside. Lucky for us my car was in the garage because our neighbors car had damage and also my sister's car. I am hoping there is no damage to the roof.

Fire Pit

Tim has been wanting a fire pit for the backyard for some time, so he finally got one last week with his birthday money. He spent the weekend building up the wall around it to make it look nice and bought some comfy chairs to put around it. Tonight was our first night to use it. It took us a little bit to get the fire going but once we did it was so nice! It was cool outside so the heat from the fire was just enough to warm us up. Good job Tim!

Happy Easter

We celebrated Easter a little different this year. We decided to stay home and celebrate as a family. We figured the kids (and us) would get as much out of family time as we would at church. We had our own Easter story and made crosses and tombs and other spring items out of play doh as we read the story of how our Savior was risen from the dead. The kids even had the idea to use our stamps we were using to mark our feet and hands were Jesus was nailed to the cross. That was a good idea since it reminded us all day of the sacrifice Jesus made for us. We then went outside and used the new kites and bubbles we got from the Easter Bunny. It was a perfect day for kites. Once lunch time came we headed over to Gram's to have lunch with the family. Everyone was there (except Uncle Jason) so it was nice having the entire crew around. Gram and Grampie hid Easter eggs outside for the boys to look for after lunch. The kids had fun looking for all the prize eggs which had candy or money in them. We are so blessed to have such a great family to spend time with and even more blessed that we have been forgiven of our sins for eternity thanks to our awesome Lord and Savior! Happy Easter!

Just 'cause I think they are cute!